


Heretic

by Wolf_of_Lilacs



Series: Through a Glass Darkly [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Blood and Gore, F/F, Female Harry Potter, Female Voldemort, Flashbacks, One-Sided Attraction, Possession, Possessive Behavior, fantastic elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 03:30:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17820995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/Wolf_of_Lilacs
Summary: The forest is no refuge.





	Heretic

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Salem witch trials, but please don't look for anything like historical accuracy.

They find her reading Mad Madge and whittling. “That is no way for a woman to behave,” they tell her, knocking the book from her lap and the wood from her hand. “Come with us, if you please,” they say, grasping her about the arms and frog-marching her away. “It takes one to know one,” they growl, shaking her hard enough that her teeth clack together. Their faces are hidden behind sackcloth; their grip is tight enough to bruise.

They didn’t give her a chance to speak in her own defense (a punch to the mouth and a gag), but she will not go, so she wriggles free and runs. “Help!” she chokes, wrenching the wad of cloth from her mouth. Her heart pounds with the adrenaline of her flight. She needs somewhere, anywhere, to hide from her pursuers. She can hear them distantly, stumbling over roots and logs. (“Witch!” they call to her. “Show yourself, witch!”)

Then all is silent, as though a blanket has been thrown up between her and them. Harriet stands, arms crossed tightly over her chest, and waits, her fear turning to something akin to dread.

She doesn’t have to wait long. There is a rustle at the edge of a clearing just ahead of where she stands, and a figure appears, strangely slender and tall in profile.

“You called for help, pretty girl?” There is almost something familiar in the cadence of the question, but Harriet is too filled with fear to think about it.

“I did, but—” But she hadn’t expected anyone to respond. She would keep running, and when she tired, they would inevitably catch her up.

“You expected a kind forest spirit willing to bow to all your foolish whims?” The figure comes closer. “Too late, darling. I chased them all away.” Thin lips contort into a smile, revealing sharp, sharp teeth.

Harriet had heard whispers of a vengeful forest spirit, rumored to have been one of the village girls recently put to death. But those are only whispers, and any who speak of fantastical happenings are rounded up and put on trial. They are, inevitably, found guilty of all charges and sentenced accordingly. None of that is pleasant to consider.

The forest spirit comes fully into view then, her face chalky, her cat-like eyes a bloody scarlet, her nose no more than two slits, her head pale and hairless. Harriet shudders, backing away too quickly and tripping over her feet. The figure crouches over her, leaning close. Her cold, long-fingered hand curls around the back of Harriet’s neck. “Tell me, what would you have me do?” There is nothing human in her aspect, nothing to show who she once may have been.

Harriet’s tongue is heavy in her mouth. Her thoughts are fuzzy. “I needed to run away,” she croaks. “I have nowhere to go.” She’d never had anywhere to stay as it was. But they’d promised! And she had been afraid…

The apparition rises to hover over Harriet, elbows on either side of her head. “But that’s simple,” she purrs. “So very simple.” She stands, drawing Harriet with her. “You will remain with me, and none shall ever harm you.” As if she had read Harriet’s very thoughts.

No, Harriet thinks. No, no. No, she wanted freedom, not this…whatever _this_ is.

“Let it all go, darling,” the forest spirit says gently, leading Harriet with a painful grip of the hand. Her touch is a cold that Harriet feels to her bones.

They emerge in a clearing, where Harriet is gently laid back down. Exhaustion consumes her, and as the forest spirit curls around her, relief finds her, too. “Let it all go,” she is told once more.

What choice does she have? (And as she falls into sleep, she glimpses towering flames and smells burning flesh and feels nothing but fear. It is not her own. And in the distance, green eyes watch.)

*

“Would you like to see them dead?” Harriet hears as if from beneath water, the words soft and indistinct. She tries to return to herself, but the heaviness of sleep clings.

“No,” she mumbles. “No, they —” She tastes nothing but the dryness of her mouth.

“—Will only hurt others as they threatened to hurt you.” Harriet feels her hand captured, gently stroked by frigid fingers. “I need you to show me who they are, darling.”

Harriet unwillingly remembers their obscured faces, their narrowed, angry eyes.

“Ah, very good.” Harriet feels herself stand and begin to walk back through the forest, every step somehow a surprise. “Wait,” she protests weakly, though she doesn’t know if she’s said it aloud.

“I will not let harm come to you.” Those words pluck at a distant memory, and Harriet relaxes

They find Harriet’s pursuers easily, all three of them wandering dazedly at the forest’s edge. “Let her go,” the tallest of them decides. “There’re more where she came from that won’t get away so easily.”

Harriet feels something like anger, and she thinks it might be hers. They will not escape their fate. They betrayed her. _They will pay._

“That’s it, darling. Embrace it.”

The three don’t have a chance. Harriet leaps at them, her hands and feet moving with a speed hitherto unknown. First one falls in an ungainly heap of tangled limbs, unconscious, a nasty bruise forming on his brow. Then the next, choking and scrabbling at his throat, his skin going blue with impossible rapidity.

“Tear him apart.” Harriet’s fingers find their way between the third man’s ribs, braking, wrenching, tearing, the splintering of the bones thunderous. Blood spirts, warm and wet and heavy between her fingers, dripping down her wrists. She feels the throbbing of his heart; it shudders through her bones, until she halts with a savage tearing. (It should not be so easy to rip a heart in two, yet it comes apart in her hands like fresh clay.). He keens and struggles fruitlessly, flat on his back, his struggles fading and fading to stillness.

“Yes, yes.”

Harriet comes to, her hands dripping red and flesh caught beneath her nails. “What happened?” She tries to scrub her hands clean on her skirts.

“Allow me.” She licks the blood and bits of meat from Harriet’s hands with a long, narrow tongue. Harriet cannot bear to watch.

When she has finished her task, the forest spirit cradles Harriet’s head in long-fingered hands, planting a gentle kiss upon her forehead. “You did well.”

“But I didn’t do —” Harriet writhes weakly.

“Oh, but you did, and it was beautiful.” The forest spirit kisses her again, this time on the mouth. Harriet can taste frost and fire and blood.

“They will never harm another, and it is thanks to you. There shall be no more like me.”

“No!” Harriet tries to free herself, but she is too tired, and the place she lies too comfortable. ( _No more like me._ What can she mean?)

“Sleep now. You have had a trying day.”

Harriet’s eyes close, and she dreams…

*

…Of watching a young woman walk, who will not take notice of her. She tries to gain her favor with scintillating conversation, with small presents of bread and weaving. 

“I’ve heard about you,” her darling says, backing away when she finds her with a rose in hand. “They say your mummy died in childbirth because you’re cursed.”

Her darling is not like the rest of the village girls, no matter how her words hurt as theirs do. “Will you accept the rose?” she asks, ignoring the mention of her mother.

“What does it mean?”

It’s freshly picked, its petals scarlet; she has carefully trimmed away the thorns. She holds it out on her palm. “Take it, please.” She knows she’s let something slip—a harsh note in her voice, a few too many teeth in her smile—for her darling wraps her arms about herself and backs away farther.

“Please go.”

“I don’t mean you any harm—” She thrusts the rose closer.

“You killed that boy’s rabbit, didn’t you” Her darling’s voice trembles. “And you’re a thief.”

“You know what it is to go hungry, too.”

Her darling turns her back. “N-Not if it makes me like you.”

__

_They come for her the next day._

*

“Riddle!” Harriet wakes, covered in cold sweat. “Riddle! You!”

“Not anymore. Tommie Riddle was weak in life.” Harriet tries to sit up, but she is unable to move. “But in death…” Harriet starts to scream, but her voice is now as impotent as the rest of her. “In death, I can claim you.”

Harriet continues to scream; for all her efforts, she will never be heard.


End file.
